Sunday Mail : U2 snubs tour plea

While Billy Joel and Elton John have caved in to demand for anAdelaide concert, one of the world’s greatest rock’n’roll bands ismaintaining its snub.

Irish super group U2, one of the most enduring acts in modern musichistory, will not perform in Adelaide when its PopMart world tour hits

Australia in February next year. Piano men Joel and John hadplanned to do the same and bypass Adelaide on their Face to Face tour in March. But public demand and months of negotiations resulted in achange of plans, with an Adelaide show (on March 18 at Adelaide Oval)announced last week.

U2 will perform only in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, with ticketson sale from Thursday.

The stage show features the world’s largest television (which uses35km of cable), 1000 lighting fixtures, six broadcast televisioncameras, 20 Xenon searchlights and an 11m-high lemon.

The touring ensemble boasts more than 200 people, while the stage setrequires a transport fleet of 15 buses and 52 trucks.

U2 manager, Mr Paul McGuinness, said the band could only play threeshows here, despite Australia being "the best audience in theworld". "It’s tough to play Australia ; it’s a very long way to shipthis enormous production," he said.

However, Australian promoter Dainty Consolidated Entertainment said itwould continue to fight for an Adelaide concert.

A Dainty spokesman said negotiations with the international concertpromoter were continuing.

"At this stage, an Adelaide date has not been secured because of theband’s time constraints," he said.

PopMart has been huge success in the US, with U2 the top grossing actfor ticket sales in the region for the first half of 1997.